Edmonds Election 2011: Candidates await next round of results today

With three races too close to call after Tuesday’s preliminary election results, candidates are awaiting the next voting update from Snohomish County Elections, scheduled to be released at 5 p.m. today.

Win or lose, candidates for the City Council races in question say they are proud of their efforts to focus on important issues during what was an often-contentious election cycle.

“I’m very proud of the fact that we ran a very positive campaign,” said Bob Wilcox, who is challenging incumbent Diane Buckshnis for City Council Position 4. “We discouraged our supporters from going negative.” As of last night, Wilcox — recently retired from Wilcox Construction — had a razor-thin lead of 38 votes over Buckshnis, a retired banker.

Darlene Stern, who has a 237-vote edge over incumbent Lora Petso, was cautiously optimistic about her chances as she greeted her supporters during a joint campaign party at Frank Yamamoto’s Running in Motion store last night. “So far, it’s looking good,” Stern said. Petso, meanwhile, sent out a message on Facebook: “Down 237 votes with at least 3,000 to be counted. Whatever the outcome — thanks to everyone for their support — this was a tough election for a number of reasons — your support is greatly appreciated and will be remembered.”

As for incumbent Edmonds Mayor Mike Cooper, who is trailing badly in his race against challenger Dave Earling, he said in an email this morning that “the results certainly don’t look good for me. I am proud of the accomplishments I made while being mayor, but the voters look like they decided on change.”

Cooper said that he would issue a more formal statement after today’s election results are released.

12 COMMENTS

When the elections are over maybe we could get the people who do the sunset pictures to get all the loosing candidates to pose walking into the sunset, down a road that needs repair, passing by a building that has a roof leak, all while carring a depleting general fund bag of money. Might have to do some photo shop work to make this all come together.

In response to comments 1 & 3…I fail to see what you were trying to accomplish with a comment like that. You seem to want to paint Edmonds as a town that is destroyed, and put the blame squarely on the shoulders of people who you elected. I believe that all any of the councilmembers wanted to do was to make a positive difference in the community, and the response they get is comments like that? No wonder people are hesitant to get involved in city politics. I’d certainly appreciate it if people tried to contribute more positive ideas and fewer personal attacks.

Ian, I’m wondering if you have been reading the news lately regarding the state of our city. In my opinion the city needs a complete revamping of it’s leadership. City hall sounds like a mess. Transparency seems to be the catch phrase du jour, and not what is being practiced. I think city council can do better and that is why I voted the way I did this election. I still stand by my views as posted above. Negative? I don’t think so. Truthful, yes.

Ian, I am sorry that my attempt to create a chuckle was taken so seriously. As you may or may not know, I have been very outspoken on supporting street overlays and in my comment in 1 above, I too am part of that parade. I do plan to speak out in the future about some revenue generating ideas and some cost cutting measures and also discuss the forces that may have been at work in this election. I hope to enlighten readers and show how we all can contribute to the future of Edmonds with our collective work on the Strategic Plan.

It is not surprising that the propositions failed. Feeding, housing, clothing and educating families are higher priorities for the limited resources of voters. The good news is that the preliminary budget indicates that the city has the resources to do most of what the 3 propositions would have funded in 2012. There’s an extra $700k in the general fund and there’s $1.3 million available from the sale of the depreciating assets to Fire District 1.

One year from now this issue will once again have to be dealt with; let’s hope that there’s some improvement in the economy by then, and that the city’s new strategic plan contains some blue print for real economic development.

Thanks for the responses, posts like those are the thought provoking ones. Ms. Johnson, I agree transparency has not been practiced, at least not the way it should have been. It seems to me that in the D.J. Wilson fiasco, the council released information that should have been kept private (the leak to the newspaper) and held back information that should have been made public. This strikes me as council having a basic misunderstanding of the law, certainly helping the case for changes in leadership. Mr. Haug,I’m glad you have been supporting street overlays. If only the rest of Edmonds had agreed, I think the street levy was the only one worth passing, maybe that will happen in the future.

I agree that the need for street overlays does not go away in spite of the levy being turned down. Delaying will lead to what I have seen in Seattle. I often travel 10th in Capitol Hill and saw the process of taking the street down several inches and redoing. It took a long time. It had been in horrible shape. I am sure those several blocks cost a small fortune. Not keeping up streets is penny wise and pound foolish. I also plan to be involved in the Strategic Plan process.

As we move forward, I want to encourage folks to not characterize ‘city hall’ as being a mess, not helpful, not professional, etc. Remember our city government is a cast of many doing different things. Recreations, maintenance, public safety, and more. These folks, and their work, often go unnoticed because of how well they do it w/o making a flap over anything. The newly elected leadership has an opportunity to work with this group of experienced professionals and together be successful. It’s the only way we’ll succeed in the near term.

Hey Jim, you got it right.
The new mayor and council deserves our unconditional support. All of us to all of them
regardless of political affiliation.Their are plenty of us willing to provide council oversight. Our City has run effectively with a few hiccups during the past 25 years that
I have been paying attention. We see some changes that need to be made and this
Mayor and this council will make them
Clean slate all around.
Dave Page

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